Thursday, February 5, 2009

THE TEMPTATIONS aka NEIL STEVENS & THE TEMPTATIONS

When The Four Temptations(see in this blog) broke up member Artie Ripp formed and managed another Temptation's group consisted of Artie Maren,Artie Schlacman,Larry Schwartz and Neil Stevens from Flushing,NY.

I was part owner of a relatively famous New York City record shop in the 1950's thru late 1960's, and I cannot begin to tell you how many times I lost black customers after they came into my store asking for the 'new' Temptations record 'Barbara'; after I played a few seconds of it, some would say 'that's not the [Motown] Temptations' and either walk out never to return or simply say 'thanks' and walk out of my store. How this white Temptations got to legally use this name when the black Temptations had been using the name before is beyond me? There must've been some legal barrier that prevented Berry Gordy from suing the label?

The black Temptations were not the original owners of name! A white group from Bayonne New Jersey, called the "Temptations", which formed in 1956 copyrighted the name and Bob Moore of this Temptation group (Birds 'n Bees/Temptation on Parkway), owns it to this day. He could have sued all them for a 'copyright infraction' but chose not to because he's too nice a guy.

@ Daniel Held - The "Barbara" Temptations were using the name before the Motown group were. I was never personally a fan of Motown, so I would've probably walked out of your store if all you had were the later group.

Whitedoowopcollector on youtube

Music Files

the music files presented are posted for purposes of musical enlightenment only.The intention is to raise awareness of underappreciated artists/songs. If you like what you hear, seek these artists out on CD or get out there and find some of this old vinyl for yourself... If you are the copyright holder and wish any files to be removed, I will do so immediately upon request.